Genetics Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Genetics - Assignment Example The two groups as mentioned afore were male and female. Since the heights were measured without selecting a particular group of student the sample can be considered as convenient sample. The population from which the sample was drawn consisted of college students. Moreover, the data recorded the heights for year 2013-2014 class. The number of male students was 175 while that of female was 244. The data gathered in the initial stage was in the raw form then it was copied to excel in two columns, one for male heights while the other was for female heights. The in order to summarize the data using Data Analysis ribbon of the MS Excel 2007, the Descriptive Statistics was calculated. The output is mentioned below. Descriptive Statistics    MALE FEMALE          Mean 179.4685714 165.2828 Standard Error 0.538915079 0.432823 Median 180 165 Standard Deviation 7.12917639 6.760904 Sample Variance 50.82515599 45.70983 Range 39 40 Minimum 162 148 Maximum 201 188 Sum 31407 40329 Count 175 2 44 Among the given values, the most important are the mean values and the measures of dispersion. From the table it is evident that the average male height is 179.5 cm while that of female is 165.3 cm which shows that on average the male height is greater than female. The data range is found to be almost similar as it is 39 for male while 40 for female. The standard deviation for male height is 7.13 while that for female is 6.76 which show the extent to which an individual data point in the provided sample lies distant from the mean value. Overall the height does not vary to a great extent in both cases as the standard deviation obtained is similar in both cases. But the observable differences in the mean values of male and female height may be due to the difference in the sizes of each sample. The size of male height sample is 175 while that of female height sample is 244 thus both groups differ in their sizes by 69 units which is quite significant difference. So in order to elimin ate the impact of this difference on the overall mean values of each sample, the means of each group is required to be tested using statistical procedures. Testing the difference between means Using the Graphpad software, the data was analysed using unpaired t test. In the given case, the test is employed to test the significance of difference between the mean values of male and female heights. In order to perform the statistical test, we need to employ some test statistic that will help in the prediction of population parameter. Therefore, the test statistics to test the significance of difference of mean value used is t statistics. The unpaired t test has been conducted on the given data assuming that both groups have equal variances. Employing statistical test requires ascertaining some decision rule which in the given case utilizes the P value obtained, and is needed to be less than 0.0001. Since the analysis was done using online software, the important values included the P-va lue, the t value, the confidence interval, degree of freedom and standard error of mean (Graphpad Software, Inc.). The output is summarized in the following table. P-value < 0.0001 T value 20.7036 The confidence interval at 95%   12.84 to 15.53 Degree of freedom 417 Standard error of difference 0.685   The confidence interval is drawn at 95% level, which shows that the mean differences between male and female height varied from 12.84 to 15.53. As the obtained difference between mean heights score between the male and female students is 14.12. The test provided the t value of 20.7036 with degree of freedom 417 and standard error of difference was 0.685. Since, the P-value obtained is found to be less than 0.0001 which makes it certain that the differences obtained between